Venice, DICE Project – Advanced cultural clusters into the Veneto Region: Best Practice Example



The questions tackled by the project are to underline the limit faced by the Venetian traditional clusters[1] organised around a single productive specialization. The above mentioned clusters don’t collaborate in a systematic way with the others actors of the local system (municipalities, foundations, training agencies, civil society, relevant institutions).

Moreover, lots of firms which cooperating with a particular district don’t get in touch neither communicate with each other expect in the following situations: a) carrying on different ways of productions; b) taking in consideration that lots of production costs could be erased; and struggling arranging Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) strategies.

The [Veneto Footwear District], for example, supports its firms and their missions assisting the footwear manufacturers of the “Riviera del Brenta” (province of Venice) and the Veneto Region, providing organisational services to the companies working in, supporting them in fairs and exhibitions, etc

a) What is the nature of the intervention?

The role of culture in the pre-industrial & industrial economies is to produce knowledge such as the Veneto Footwear District operates conceiving ad producing high-quality shoes. Its internal organization is based on a its consumer market strategy.

Actually, in the post-industrial economies, culture tends to become the basic platform for the construction of individual and collective identify models and tends to assume the character of a public good (see here). It is nowadays the core of the production and circulation of knowledge.

Nowadays living in Venice is getting increasingly difficult due to the mass tourism which is overcoming all the other important assets of the city. Policies have been tourism-oriented up to know, without taking in consideration the raise of quality of life of the inhabitants: the result is the lack of a socio-economic model of managing a cultural based development of the city.

The advanced cultural cluster model – identified by the presence of talents and the new creative class, by the innovation tendency and by capability building - focuses on the social and economic aspects and it is based on the assumption that culture works as a “system activator”[2] of radical innovation, “the social grammar through which the discourse of innovation is spelled out”[3] is the most important device adapted on creating the communication platform among the economic and social actors in a precise-borders territory.

The action of the project is twofold:

1. the first one is individuating the cultural activities and the infrastructures which host them – or planning to do it - present in the regional territory: a mapping of what exists and of what could be exploited by the cultural point of view throughout the entire region;

2. the second one focuses on the elaboration of the gathered data and on the individuation of the several clusters (12) living in Veneto after the data screening. The following SWOT analyses’ goal for each cluster pointed out is to supporting the best cultural based policies in order to a) enhance the networking activities such as communication, dissemination of informations and coordination among the actors of the system within every cluster; b) let the latent capability of the processes inside these areas merge.

Twelve strategic lines of action define the menu for an effective policy management of the progressive cultural district[4]:

Quality of Cultural Supply (QCS)

Quality of Local Governance (QLG)

Quality of the Production of Knowledge (QPK)</li></li>

Development of Local Entrepreneurship (DLE)</li></li>

Development of Local Talent (DLT)</li></li>

Attraction of External Firms (AEF)</li></li>

Attraction of External Talent (AET)</li></li>

Management of Social Criticalities (MSC)</li></li>

Capability Building and Education of the Local Community (CBE)</li></li>

Local community involvement (LCI)</li></li>

Internal Networking (INW)</li></li>

External Networking (ENW).</li> The strategic lines identified could be a strategy of identification of cultural policies for clusters.<p style="text-align:justify">b) What is the effect of the intervention?

<p style="text-align:justify">The objective of the analysis is identifying the strengths and the weakness, the opportunities and the threats of the cultural model in Venice.

<p style="text-align:justify">Therefore, focusing on Venice situation we can say that: </li>

it is excellent in AET, QPK and ENW;</li></li>

it has basic gas in QCS, QLG, AEF, DLT, MSC, LCI, INW;</li></li>

dissolving identity of the city brings to a growing stereotypization of the city that gradually transforms into a customer-oriented entertainment park</li>

</li>
 * it is a city that ‘plays fake’;

the challenge which has to face is reinventing the city’s cultural life through a global rethinking of the social use of space: a bottom-up creative rejuvenation aimed at making of Venice the diamond head of a Veneto advanced cultural clusters’ economy (social capital)</li></li>

it’s needed to go beyond a (impossible) preservation phase to a production one (possible)?</li>

Taking into considerations these aspects, moreover, the following process to bring is based on:
 * along with the other Veneto clusters characterized almost by an exclusive concentration on DLE, the commitment is now forcing QCS, DLT, LCI, CBC).
 * <p style="text-align:justify">1. leaving public and private actors taking all the initiatives needed to boosting the latent opportunities and abilities;


 * <p style="text-align:justify">2. improving new strategic plan;


 * <p style="text-align:justify">3. building or enhancing coalitions of actors in order to elaborate new projects and skills aimed to support territories in “playing the system”;


 * <p style="text-align:justify">4. meeting with stakeholders;


 * <p style="text-align:justify">5. creating of a development agency;


 * <p style="text-align:justify">6. organizing periodic feedback conferences/meetings and revision of the strategic plan and projects;


 * <p style="text-align:justify">7. participating in EU call for proposals as a unique actor at a regional level.

c) What advice would you give others?  <p style="text-align:justify">As merged by the elaborated map, the clusters don’t coincide with the administrative borders but rather are more suitable with a cultural aspects of the territory: they don’t want to be an alternative option and it could be wrong consider them such as institutional ones.

<p style="text-align:justify">We have to consider the clusters as territorial areas with ongoing and changeable borders, able to interact among each others and when thus happens the public sectors and the stakeholders must get able to support these processes.

<p style="text-align:justify">The consequences of the developments of the higher interaction among all the considered actors, one finds increasingly complex forms of strategic coordination between heterogeneous operators: public administrators, firms, universities and schools, civil society, etc.

<p style="text-align:justify">The cultural-based processes, besides improving knowledge-oriented policies which follow European Commission indications (i.e. the Lisbon strategy), strongly re-think the local development making it more competitive and innovate, able to face the new challenges we’re going to handle.

[1] Industrial clusters are defined by geographical areas characterised by a high concentration of small industries, with special reference to the relationship between the existence of these companies and the resident population as well as to the product specialisation of this group of companies.

[2] Sacco Pier Luigi, Williams Bob, Del Bianco Elvy (2007), “The Power of the Arts in Vancouver: Creating a Great City”, p. 15.

[3] Ibidem.

[4] Sacco Pier Luigi, Nuccio Massimiliano, Tavano Blessi Giorgio, “Cultural polizie and local planning strategies: which role of culture in local sustainable development?” </li>